Where
would anyone get the crazy idea that Islam was inherently violent?
Well, the day’s headlines might give us that very strong impression, but
Obama would tell us (and has told us) that those Muslims who are
screaming “Allahu akbar” as they murder non-Muslims are, despite
appearances, not really Muslims at all, but just people who have
twisted, hijacked, misunderstood the Religion of Peace.
It is, true, however, that there are plenty of Muslims who tell us that Islam is inherently violent. Here are a few of them:
“Jihad was a way of life for the Pious Predecessors (Salaf-us-Salih),
and the Prophet (SAWS) was a master of the Mujahideen and a model for
fortunate inexperienced people. The total number of military excursions
which he (SAWS) accompanied was 27. He himself fought in nine of these;
namely Badr; Uhud, Al-Muraysi, The Trench, Qurayzah, Khaybar, The
Conquest of Makkah, Hunayn and Taif . . . This means that the Messenger
of Allah (SAWS) used to go out on military expeditions or send out an
army at least every two months.” — Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of
al-Qaeda, Join the Caravan, p. 30
“If we follow the rules of interpretation developed from the
classical science of Koranic interpretation, it is not possible to
condemn terrorism in religious terms. It remains completely true to the
classical rules in its evolution of sanctity for its own justification.
This is where the secret of its theological strength lies.” — Egyptian
scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
“Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform
the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims.
Therefore, killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing
you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great
legitimate duty in our religion.” — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 defendants
“Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage
jihad. We only fulfil God’s orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the
world.” — Taliban terrorist Baitullah Mehsud
“Jihad, holy fighting in Allah’s course, with full force of numbers
and weaponry, is given the utmost importance in Islam….By jihad, Islam
is established….By abandoning jihad, may Allah protect us from that,
Islam is destroyed, and Muslims go into inferior position, their honor
is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad
is an obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim.” — Times Square car bomb terrorist Faisal Shahzad
“So step by step I became a religiously devout Muslim, Mujahid — meaning one who participates in jihad.” — Little Rock, Arkansas terrorist murderer Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad
“And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build
explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it
is time for Jihad.” — Texas terrorist bomber Khalid Aldawsari
Obama would dismiss all these as “extremists” who are not really
Muslim at all and have nothing to do with Islam. Yet one also might get
the impression that Islam is inherently violent from the authoritative
sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib):Shafi’i school: A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that was
certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the
leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni
orthodoxy, stipulates about jihad that “the caliph makes war upon Jews,
Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or pay the
non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh Ali Salman, a
Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war
only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and
Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will
not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the
non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)…while remaining in their ancestral
religions.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).
Of course, there is no caliph today, unless one believes the claims
of the Islamic State, and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al
are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized
their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad,
which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes “obligatory for
everyone” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked.
The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence
with non-Muslims as equals: ‘Umdat al-Salik specifies that the
warfare against non-Muslims must continue until “the final descent of
Jesus.” After that, “nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for
taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus’ descent” (o9.8).Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the
same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam
before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders,
directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that
jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious
reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that
they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of
taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this
consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the
call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”
However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent
to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on
the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them,
because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer
of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid
upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.”
(Al-Hidayah, II.140)Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering
historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his
renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that
“in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of
the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert
everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the
person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power
politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other
nations.”Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is
commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya
(Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He
directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its
aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost,
therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this
aim must be fought.”
This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. Majid Khadduri
was an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book
War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955
and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the
subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:

The state which is regarded as the instrument for
universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding
state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law
into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning
ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an
instrument for both the universalization of religion and the
establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)

Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of
Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad.
In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the
twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the
purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things:
it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee
concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim
community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah
through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised
only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
All this makes it clear that there is abundant reason to believe that
Islam is indeed inherently violent. It would be illuminating if Obama
or someone around him produced some quotations from Muslim authorities
he considers “authentic,” and explained why the authorities I’ve quoted
above and others like them are inauthentic. While in reality there is no
single Muslim authority who can proclaim what is “authentic” Islam, and
thus it would be prudent not to make sweeping statements about what
“authentic Islam” actually is, clearly there are many Muslim who believe
that authentic Islam is inherently violent.
One might also get the impression that Islam is inherently violent from these Qur’an verses:
2:191-193: “And slay them wherever you come upon them, and expel them
from where they expelled you; persecution is more grievous than
slaying. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight
you there; then, if they fight you, slay them — such is the recompense
of unbelievers, but if they give over, surely Allah is All-forgiving,
All-compassionate. Fight them, till there is no persecution and the
religion is Allah’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity
save for evildoers.”
4:34: “Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that Allah
has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have
expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient,
guarding the secret for Allah’s guarding. And those you fear may be
rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If
they then obey you, look not for any way against them; Allah is
All-high, All-great.”
4:89: “They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and
then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of
them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah; then, if they turn their
backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them; take not to
yourselves any one of them as friend or helper.”
5:33: “This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and
His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they
shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall
alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That
is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come
awaits them a mighty chastisement.”
5:38: “And the thief, male and female: cut off the hands of both, as a
recompense for what they have earned, and a punishment exemplary from
Allah; Allah is All-mighty, All-wise.”
8:12: “When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so
confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror;
so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!”
8:39: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is
Allah’s entirely; then if they give over, surely Allah sees the things
they do.”
8:60: “Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you
can, to strike terror thereby into the enemy of Allah and your enemy,
and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And
whatsoever you expend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full;
you will not be wronged.”
9:5: “Then, when the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters
wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait
for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the
prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is
All-forgiving, All-compassionate.”
9:29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do
not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not
practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the
Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel
themselves subdued.”
9:111: “Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their
possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of
Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah
in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Koran; and who fulfils his
covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with
Him; that is the mighty triumph.”
9:123: “O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and
let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the
godfearing.”
47:4: “When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when
you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set
them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads.
So it shall be; and if Allah had willed, He would have avenged Himself
upon them; but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those
who are slain in the way of Allah, He will not send their works
astray.”
There are some tolerant verses in the Qur’an as well — see, for
example, sura 109. But then in Islamic tradition there are authorities
who say that violent passages take precedence over these verses.
Muhammad’s earliest biographer, an eighth-century Muslim named Ibn
Ishaq, explains the progression of Qur’anic revelation about warfare.
First, he explains, Allah allowed Muslims to wage defensive warfare. But
that was not Allah’s last word on the circumstances in which Muslims
should fight. Ibn Ishaq explains offensive jihad by invoking a Qur’anic
verse: “Then God sent down to him: ‘Fight them so that there be no more
seduction,’ i.e. until no believer is seduced from his religion. ‘And
the religion is God’s’, i.e. Until God alone is worshipped.”
The Qur’an verse Ibn Ishaq quotes here (2:193) commands much more
than defensive warfare: Muslims must fight until “the religion is God’s”
— that is, until Allah alone is worshipped. Ibn Ishaq gives no hint
that that command died with the seventh century.
The great medieval scholar Ibn Qayyim (1292-1350) also outlines the
stages of the Muhammad’s prophetic career: “For thirteen years after the
beginning of his Messengership, he called people to God through
preaching, without fighting or Jizyah, and was commanded to restrain
himself and to practice patience and forbearance. Then he was commanded
to migrate, and later permission was given to fight. Then he was
commanded to fight those who fought him, and to restrain himself from
those who did not make war with him. Later he was commanded to fight the
polytheists until God’s religion was fully established.”
In other words, he initially could fight only defensively — only
“those who fought him” — but later he could fight the polytheists until
Islam was “fully established.” He could fight them even if they didn’t
fight him first, and solely because they were not Muslim.
Nor do all contemporary Islamic thinkers believe that that command is
a relic of history. According to a 20th century Chief Justice of Saudi
Arabia, Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid, “at first ‘the
fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was
made obligatory.” He also distinguishes two groups Muslims must fight:
“(1) against them who start ‘the fighting’ against you (Muslims) . . .
(2) and against all those who worship others along with Allah . . . as
mentioned in Surat Al-Baqarah (II), Al-Imran (III) and At-Taubah (IX) . .
. and other Surahs (Chapters of the Qur’an).” (The Roman numerals after
the names of the chapters of the Qur’an are the numbers of the suras:
Sheikh Abdullah is referring to Qur’anic verses such as 2:216,
3:157-158, 9:5, and 9:29.)
Here again, obviously there is a widespread understanding of the
Qur’an within Islamic tradition that sees it, and Islam, as inherently
violent. And we see Muslims who clearly understand their religion as
being inherently violent acting upon that understanding around the world
today, in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Nigeria and
elsewhere. We can hope that those who embody the true, peaceful Islam
that Obama assumes to exist come forward and work against the Muslims
who believe in violence, instead of just issuing pro-forma
condemnations. So far we have not seen that. On the contrary, we see
reformers threatened and cowed into silence. The Moroccan activist Ahmed
Assid condemned violence in Islam’s name and was immediately declared an apostate and threatened with death
by Muslim clerics. If the Ahmed Assids of the world represent the true
Islam that is not inherently violent, the message has not gotten through
to all too many of their coreligionists.
We may hope it does someday. In the meantime, it is imperative to
continue to speak about how Islamic jihadists use the texts and
teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism, so as to alert
all people of good will to the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat,
and its motives and goals. This is not indulging in hateful
generalizations; it is simply to speak honestly and realistically about a
threat all free people face. If we cannot speak about it, it will
nonetheless keep coming, and catch us unawares.
“Obama on What Trump and Cruz Get Wrong About Islam,” by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, March 29, 2016 (thanks to Daniel Greenfield):

…In one of my recent conversations with Obama, he dilated
on this point in an interesting way. (“The Obama Doctrine” contains
many thousands of words of Obama’s thoughts on foreign policy. However, I
could not, for reasons of space, include all of what he had to say. In
the coming weeks, I will be highlighting some of the things he told me
that did not make it into the original article.) Obama made these
particular comments during a conversation about Ronald Reagan’s
influence on Republican thought. His main argument here is that rhetoric
that could legitimately be deployed against an ideology like communism
cannot be similarly deployed against the world’s second-largest
religion.Obama first praised Reagan’s “moral clarity about communism,”
saying, “I think you can make a credible argument that as important as
containment was in winning the Cold War, as important as prudence was in
winning the Cold War, that at a time when perhaps the West had gotten
too comfortable in the notion that, ‘Look, the world is divided and
there’s nothing we could do about it,’ Reagan promoting a clearer moral
claim about why we have to fight for freedom was useful and was
important.”
The danger comes, Obama told me, when people apply lessons of the
struggle against communism in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.
“You have some on the Republican side who will insist that what we
need is the same moral clarity with respect to radical Islam. Except, of
course, communism was not embedded in a whole bunch of cultures,
communism wasn’t a millennium-old religion that was embraced by a whole
host of good, decent, hard-working people who are our allies. Communism
for the most part was a foreign, abstract ideology that had been adopted
by some nationalist figures, or those who were concerned about poverty
and inequality in their countries but wasn’t organic to these cultures.”
He went on to say, “Establishing some moral clarity about what
communism was and wasn’t, and being able to say to the people of Latin
America or the people of Eastern Europe, ‘There’s a better way for you
to achieve your goals,’ that was something that could be useful to do.”
But, he said, “to analogize it to one of the world’s foremost religions
that is the center of people’s lives all around the world, and to
potentially paint that as a broad brush, isn’t providing moral clarity.
What it’s doing is alienating a whole host of people who we need to work
with us in order to succeed.”
Obama said that the manner in which a president discusses Islam has
direct bearing on the fight against Islam’s most extreme manifestations.
“I do believe that how the president of the United States talks about
Islam and Muslims can strengthen or weaken the cause of those Muslims
who we want to work with, and that when we use loose language that
appears to pose a civilizational conflict between the West and Islam, or
the modern world and Islam, then we make it harder, not easier, for our
friends and allies and ordinary people to resist and push back against
the worst impulses inside the Muslim world.”
Obama added, “This is not speculation on my part. Let’s just track
what has happened from the emergence of ISIS to the language that Donald
Trump has used and his logical conclusion that we should ban Muslims
from entering the country, including potentially Muslim citizens. That
wasn’t by accident. I’m amused when I watch Republicans claim that
Trump’s language is unacceptable, and ask, ‘How did we get here?’ We got
here in part because the Republican base had been fed this notion that
Islam is inherently violent, that this is who these folks are. And if
you’ve been hearing that a lot, and then somebody shows up on the scene
and says, well, the logical conclusion to civilizational conflict is we
try to make sure that we’re not destroyed internally by this foreign
civilization, that’s what you get.”
One answer to the challenge posed by ISIS, Obama said, is to
highlight for the world the achievements of American Muslims, and also
the idea that a Muslim can live in a multicultural, multi-confessional
country like the U.S. without losing faith. “We have the ability to
continue to promote the extraordinary success and patriotism and loyalty
and success of Muslim Americans,” Obama said. “That is as powerful a
message that we can send to other Muslim countries who are going through
these identity crises.”
This is not a thought of Obama’s alone. Based on my own conversations
at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community, I can say with
reasonable certainty that there are no senior-level national security
professionals in the U.S. who believe that it is in America’s best
interest to risk making Islam itself the enemy. The two leading
Republican candidates for president are currently out of step with this
conclusion.